The Voice of the Body

Author: Alexander Lowen
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 193848505X
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 358

Book Description
The Voice of the Body is the first publication in a single volume of Alexander Lowen's public lectures known as The Lowen Monographs. This historical collection of twenty-two lectures by one of the founders of contemporary body psychotherapy embodies the groundbreaking principles of Bioenergetics and Bioenergetic Analysis. Presented between 1962 and 1982, these lectures document the depth and breadth of Lowen's work not otherwise detailed in his published work. Poignant and relevant to the challenges of today's world, the topics include: Stress and Illness: A Bioenergetic View; Breathing, Movement and Feeling; Thinking and Feeling: The Bioenergetic Analysis of Thought; Sex and Personality; Self Expression vs. Survival; Aggression and Violence in the Individual; and Psychopathic Behavior and the Psychopathic Personality.

Your Body, Your Voice

Author: Theodore Dimon, Jr
Publisher: North Atlantic Books
ISBN: 158394320X
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 185

Book Description
In this innovative book, Theodore Dimon, EdD, shows how each part of the vocal organ (breathing, larynx, throat, and so on) works as part of a larger musculoskeletal system that is often interfered with, and how identifying this larger system and understanding in a practical way how it works allows a person to train and improve the voice, whether speaking or singing. Traditional vocal training methods, says Dimon, cannot be effective without restoring the functioning of the musculature that supports the voice. Enhanced with over 50 detailed full-color illustrations, the book discusses the fallacy of traditional breathing exercises and explains that the key to efficient breathing lies in the expansive support of the trunk and rib cage. Investigating the elements needed to produce a strong supported tone, Dimon describes the importance of voice “placement,” or directing the sound to a part of the body in order to produce a fully rounded, resonant tone. He identifies harmful patterns of speech and singing, and offers helpful methods for reestablishing the natural function of the vocal mechanism. Individual chapters cover elements of the whispered “ah,” producing a pure sung tone, vocal registers, the suspensory muscles of the larynx, and more.

Postopera: Reinventing the Voice-Body

Author: Jelena Novak
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317077199
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 206

Book Description
Both in opera studies and in most operatic works, the singing body is often taken for granted. In Postopera: Reinventing the Voice-Body, Jelena Novak reintroduces an awareness of the physicality of the singing body to opera studies. Arguing that the voice-body relationship itself is a producer of meaning, she furthermore posits this relationship as one of the major driving forces in recent opera. She takes as her focus six contemporary operas - La Belle et la Bête (Philip Glass), Writing to Vermeer (Louis Andriessen, Peter Greenaway), Three Tales (Steve Reich, Beryl Korot), One (Michel van der Aa), Homeland (Laurie Anderson), and La Commedia (Louis Andriessen, Hal Hartley) - which she terms 'postoperas'. These pieces are sites for creative exploration, where the boundaries of the opera world are stretched. Central to this is the impact of new media, a de-synchronization between image and sound, or a redefinition of body-voice-gender relationships. Novak dissects the singing body as a set of rules, protocols, effects, and strategies. That dissection shows how the singing body acts within the world of opera, what interventions it makes, and how it constitutes opera’s meanings.

Anatomy of the Voice

Author: Theodore Dimon, Jr
Publisher: North Atlantic Books
ISBN: 1623171970
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 122

Book Description
The first comprehensive, fully-illustrated approach to the voice that explains the anatomy and mechanics in detailed yet down-to-earth terms, for voice users and professionals of all kinds This book is the first to explain, in clear and concise language, the anatomy and mechanics of the mysterious and complex bodily system we call the voice. Beautifully illustrated with more than 100 detailed images, Anatomy of the Voice guides voice teachers and students, vocal coaches, professional singers and actors, and anyone interested in the voice through the complex landscape of breathing, larynx, throat, face, and jaw. Theodore Dimon, an internationally recognized authority on the subject, as well as an expert in the Alexander Technique, makes unfamiliar terrain accessible and digestible by describing each vocal system in short, manageable sections and explaining complex terminology. The topics he covers include ribs, diaphragm, and muscles of breathing; the intrinsic musculature of the larynx, its structure and action; the suspensory muscles of the throat; the face and jaw; the tongue and palate; and the evolution and function of the larynx.

What Every Singer Needs to Know about the Body

Author: Melissa Malde
Publisher: Plural Publishing
ISBN: 9781597564946
Category : Performance anxiety
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
Gives singers and their teachers a body mapping resource - from anatomy and physiology to body awareness - that helps them discover and correct misconceptions about the way their bodies are built and the way they function. In doing so, the book provides maps with detailed advice and exercises to use their bodies effectively.

The Voice Book

Author: Michael McCallion
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135861986
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 317

Book Description
A practical manual for voice users of all kinds, The Voice Book is written by one of the world's leading voice teachers. Michael McCallion has spent over 35 years training various professionals, from performers to auctioneers, how to use their voice. Used throughout the world in actor training and as suggested reading for lawyers, the earlier edition of The Voice Book became the classic work on using one's voice. It has now been revised to make use of the feedback from numerous readers of the earlier edition. Clearly written and easy to use, McCallion covers everything from Body Use and Breathing, to Tuning and Voice Energy. Whether you are a professional or amateur actor, a classical or popular singer, a teacher, or need to present for business, The Voice Book will help you discover how to use your voice freely, powerfully and with pleasure.

This Is the Voice

Author: John Colapinto
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
ISBN: 1982128747
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 320

Book Description
A New York Times bestselling writer explores what our unique sonic signature reveals about our species, our culture, and each one of us. Finally, a vital topic that has never had its own book gets its due. There’s no shortage of books about public speaking or language or song. But until now, there has been no book about the miracle that underlies them all—the human voice itself. And there are few writers who could take on this surprisingly vast topic with more artistry and expertise than John Colapinto. Beginning with the novel—and compelling—argument that our ability to speak is what made us the planet’s dominant species, he guides us from the voice’s beginnings in lungfish millions of years ago to its culmination in the talent of Pavoratti, Martin Luther King Jr., and Beyoncé—and each of us, every day. Along the way, he shows us why the voice is the most efficient, effective means of communication ever devised: it works in all directions, in all weathers, even in the dark, and it can be calibrated to reach one other person or thousands. He reveals why speech is the single most complex and intricate activity humans can perform. He travels up the Amazon to meet the Piraha, a reclusive tribe whose singular language, more musical than any other, can help us hear how melodic principles underpin every word we utter. He heads up to Harvard to see how professional voices are helped and healed, and he ventures out on the campaign trail to see how demagogues wield their voices as weapons. As far-reaching as this book is, much of the delight of reading it lies in how intimate it feels. Everything Colapinto tells us can be tested by our own lungs and mouths and ears and brains. He shows us that, for those who pay attention, the voice is an eloquent means of communicating not only what the speaker means, but also their mood, sexual preference, age, income, even psychological and physical illness. It overstates the case only slightly to say that anyone who talks, or sings, or listens will find a rich trove of thrills in This Is the Voice.

Zygmunt Molik's Voice and Body Work

Author: Giuliano Campo
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136972471
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 182

Book Description
One of the original members of Jerzy Grotowski’s acting company, Zygmunt Molik’s Voice and Body Work explores the unique development of voice and body exercises throughout his career in actor training. This book, constructed from conversations between Molik and author Giuliano Campo, provides a fascinating insight into the methodology of this practitioner and teacher, and focuses on his ‘Body Alphabet’ system for actors, allowing them to combine both voice and body in their preparatory process.

Singing the Body Electric: The Human Voice and Sound Technology

Author: Miriama Young
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317054849
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 216

Book Description
Singing the Body Electric explores the relationship between the human voice and technology, offering startling insights into the ways in which technological mediation affects our understanding of the voice, and more generally, the human body. From the phonautograph to magnetic tape and now to digital sampling, Miriama Young visits particular musical and literary works that define a century-and-a-half of recorded sound. She discusses the way in which the human voice is captured, transformed or synthesised through technology. This includes the sampled voice, the mechanical voice, the technologically modified voice, the pliable voice of the digital era, and the phenomenon by which humans mimic the sounding traits of the machine. The book draws from key electro-vocal works spanning a range of genres - from Luciano Berio's Thema: Omaggio a Joyce to Radiohead, from Alvin Lucier's I Am Sitting in a Room, to Björk, and from Pierre Henry's Variations on a Door and a Sigh to Christian Marclay's Maria Callas. In essence, this book transcends time and musical style to reflect on the way in which the machine transforms our experience of the voice. The chapters are interpolated by conversations with five composers who work creatively with the voice and technology: Trevor Wishart, Katharine Norman, Paul Lansky, Eduardo Miranda and Bora Yoon. This book is an interdisciplinary enterprise that combines music aesthetics and musical analysis with literature and philosophy.

The Voice of Sheila Chandra

Author: Kazim Ali
Publisher: Alice James Books
ISBN: 1948579685
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 64

Book Description
Titled for the influential singer left almost voiceless by a terrible syndrome, the poems bring sweet melodies and rhythms as the voices blend and become multitudinous. There’s an honoring of not only survival, but of persistence, as this part research-based, pensive collection contemplates what it takes to move forward when the unimaginable holds you back.